Excerpts from "The SYNDICATE"

MEET SOME OF THE CHARACTERS FROM 'THE SYNDICATE'

Matt Williams - The character who tells this story of the chase for twenty pounders

Driving home, always an anti-climax, I felt a bit down. We had made no impression on Watt's lead and he was still in the best swim. Previously I would have been happy with the two mid-doubles I had caught, but I was now thinking what all women think but are too gracious to tell us men with fragile egos, namely, that size is important. Whatever twenty pound plus equated to in inches made me think like the woman who having pulled the pants down on her new capture was less than excited if it didn't break the desired statistical barrier. No matter that it was healthy, gave a good account of itself and had brought pleasure, it wasn't big enough and that was all there was to it!

A bit of illegal night time pre-baiting...

By just after eleven we were ready. I cut a mean figure in full combat kit. Boots that could stove your head in with a mere flick of the ankle, camouflaged trousers, jacket, beret and backpack. I had a face that Al Johnson would have been proud of and to top it all I was armed with an Uzi 9mm catapult. Actually it was an Uzi 10 and 16mm catapult because that was the bore of the stinky bullets I possessed. Guessing by the weight of my backpack I had about 6,000 rounds. Rambo, now also in full attire had the same ammunition only he would use the throwing stick bazooka. Weapons technology is a wonderful thing!

Tom 'Ya Man' Watt -Syndicate founder

Tom gave me a friendly smile that lacked warmth and friendship come to that. I was not one of Tom's clique. Tom was the most successful angler on the syndicate water and pretty nearly every other water that he fished on. He was good. He knew he was good and even worse he knew that we knew that he was good. Tom was happiest talking about fishing and catching fish, he was even happier when he was talking about himself fishing and catching fish. He was clever enough to be arrogant in a humble way, a trick managed by few.

Kipper Cole - Syndicate founder and horizontal carp angler

I walked briskly down the path, past Kipper on the Island who to my complete amazement was actually awake. The old codger was making himself a meal after being surgically removed from his lounger. I wondered whether Kipper was in fact the one surviving child of a pair of Siamese twins and missed the close physical contact of another body and unable to convince any human or animal had settled for a bedchair. Or rather settled on one and now had great difficulty in getting off the bloody thing.

He had a rucksack that looked big enough to put a small family car in with bedchair attached and he had two rod holdalls that he slung across each shoulder on the diagonal, the way Mexican gunslingers favoured their bullet belts. He then tucked a caravan sized bottle of butane under one arm and gripped a huge carryall with the hand of that same arm, in the other arm he had a large 5 gallon water bottle. The weakling carried nothing in his teeth. Every item of kit including the butane bottle had got S.S stenciled on it in sharp, black pointy block capitals. If the Third Reich had ever sponsored fishing Rambo would have been up in court on a trademark copying rap.